No Shepard Without Vakarian
by CelticGrace
Summary: It's now or never as the end of the Reaper War looms and Garrus confesses his feelings for Commander Shepard.


**A/N: written as a Secret Santa for orangeflavor. Bioware owns all.**

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From the beginning, it's just the two of them. Shepard and Vakarian. Fighting against the forces of evil. Or so it seems to him.

Of course, there are others. Kaidan and Ashley, Tali and Liara, Wrex. All warriors in their own right. But he doesn't connect with them the same way he connects with Shepard. For creatures from two different worlds, they have so much in common. They spend endless night cycles exchanging stories about their childhoods, their fathers who are disappointed in their life choices, their sisters who they love but argue with more often than not.

When he finds information about Dr. Saleon, he hesitates to bring it to her attention. They have a mission after all, one far more important than one stupid salarian, even if that salarian has butchered hundreds. But she listens when Garrus tells her about the trouble he had with his C-Sec supervisors and to his surprise, readily agrees to head to the coordinates he's found. When they find the bastard, she shoots him without hesitation. Garrus can't believe his years of seeking revenge end with not getting it. He's furious, at first, but he's learned a valuable lesson.

 _Don't hesitate._

And yet, he hesitates to tell Shepard how he feels about her. Lying in bed during one night cycle when she's on duty and he's all alone, he realizes he's in love. He's _been_ in love almost since the moment she stepped into Dr. Michel's clinic and took down every thug in the place within thirty seconds.

He worries that revealing his feelings will ruin their friendship, or worse, distract her from her duties. So he waits.

And then it's too late. Shepard's dead. She survived everything Saren had to throw at her and came out victorious, only to have the Council dismiss what they know is true. They're the reason she's gone.

Everywhere he looks, Garrus sees reminders of her, and he can't stand it. All it does is remind him of how she died and why.

So he leaves.

He goes to Omega, a place of unimaginable horrors, and no law to speak of, and follows the example Shepard set. He forms a team, a damn good one, and piece by piece, he starts to take down the gangs that plague that godsforsaken place.

He's disappointed, furious, distressed, but not surprised, when it all comes crashing down around him. A traitor on the team. How could he have been so damn stupid? This wouldn't have happened if Shepard was with him.

And then… she is.

Alone and fighting for his life, on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion, he thinks he's hallucinating when he sees the flash of a long red braid in his sights. He looks again and sees the N7 on her armor, and he knows she's real.

But she's not moving fast enough. Any second now, someone on the infiltration team will recognize her; he can already see the uncertainty in some of the mercs behind her. One takes aim and Garrus does the same, taking the man down before he can get a shot off.

She glances up at the balcony where Garrus has made a sniper's nest. She smiles.

She knows it's him.

When Shepard and her companions finally reach the landing and he sees her up close, Garrus takes a moment to breathe, the first time he's really been able to breathe in two years. It's a good feeling.

The reunion is over all too quickly and they get back to work, methodically taking down the gangs the same way they once took down Saren and the geth.

One more round and he's free to join her again.

"Just like old times," he tells her, hours later when he's freed from the med-bay, a bandage barely holding together the side of his face.

"Just like old times, Garrus," she replies, the smile she gives him pained and almost forced. She's happy he's here with her, he knows that. It's something else that's bothering her.

He still can't believe she's alive, and with Cerberus no less. They'd taken down their share of Cerberus operatives in the past, and she'd declared more than once that she'd never work with them. But he knows it won't be forever, and she's got her reasons for working with them now. And he'll follow her no matter where she goes. He's always at her side, or in some dark corner, watching her every move, waiting to put a bullet between the eyes of anyone foolish enough to come after her.

They grow closer again with every passing mission. Even when he's working hard to calibrate the guns on the new Normandy, she still sits with him, chatters on about how different everything is, how people treat her now when they find out she's with Cerberus. It breaks his heart to hear the sadness in her voice, to see it on her face and in the way she moves through life. She's still the same Commander Shepard he knew, and loved, two years ago, but with an extra layer of world-weariness that wasn't there before.

She takes care of the crew, every single one of them having some personal business they need to get done before they head through the Omega-4 Relay. Once again, Garrus hesitates to ask for his own piece of her time, but by now, she can read him like a book. They sit in the Forward Battery and he tells her everything that happened in the two years she was gone. The good and the bad, the camaraderie and ultimate betrayal. She asks him what he needs.

Revenge, he tells her. And this time he won't hesitate.

But when it comes time to pull the trigger and end Sidonis' miserable excuse of an existence, Shepard is the one who hesitates. She's lured him into the open, but she won't step aside, keeping herself directly in Garrus' sights, between the traitor and some semblance of closure.

In the end, she talks him down and lets Sidonis go. Garrus can't believe it, can't understand what's just happened. She was all too eager to shoot Dr. Saleon and wasn't what Sidonis did worse? Why isn't he dead too?

Now Sidonis has to live with what he's done, she tells Garrus days later over many drinks. And that's a far worse punishment than a bullet to the head.

He begrudgingly agrees, knows that later, he'll think about it and realize she's absolutely right, as always. For now, he moves on; they've got a crew, and a galaxy, to save.

As the Normandy nears the relay, Garrus wonders yet again if he should tell Shepard how he feels. This is a suicide mission after all. No guarantee anyone will make it out alive. But once again, he decides love is just a distraction, one that they can't afford.

So he waits.

With the Collectors defeated and the entire crew rescued, the Alliance decides it's the perfect time to screw over their once-mighty heroine, forcing her into lock-up on Earth for treason against them.

The crew splits up, much as it did after Shepard's death, and Garrus returns to Palaven, wondering if he'll ever see her again.

Months later, the Reaper invasion, the one that Shepard had warned everyone about two years ago, finally begins. As he watches Palaven burn, Garrus wonders if Earth has fared any better and if Shepard is still alive.

And then, just like Omega, she's saving his ass and taking him with her to help save the rest of the galaxy.

There's little time for idle chatter this time around. Every moment is spent either sleeping or planning the next attack. Except Shepard isn't sleeping. She's barely eating, barely even taking a second to sit and catch her breath.

Garrus is thankful that he isn't the only one who's noticed. Admiral Hackett has noticed, or more likely has been told by someone else, probably Joker, and finally, he flat out orders the crew to take shore leave.

Shepard isn't happy about it. She spends most of her time in the Armax Arsenal Arena, shooting simulated Reapers. Garrus finally pulls her away after she breaks every record on the books.

"You need a break," he says, leading her to a skycab.

She huffs in frustration. "I'm already _on_ shore leave," she replies, but follows him into the cab. She looks awestruck when he lands on one of the structures high above the Presidium. "It's… beautiful."

So are you, he thinks, but resists saying it out loud. Instead he pulls out his sniper rifle and several empty bottles. "How about a competition?"

She smiles, the first one he's seen from her in months. "You're on."

By the time they've shot all the bottles, Shepard's laughing. It's thin, a little strained, but still genuine. A little of her untroubled self shining through if only for a moment, before they march back to hell.

It's the end of the line. Everyone knows it. The fleets have gathered and are heading to Earth, to make one last stand in a city that has been torn apart by war too many times to count.

Shepard's ready for it all to end; Garrus can see it in her eyes. He remembers from one of their late night talks so long ago that this city, London, is the place where she was born. Her family is gone, her crew the only family she has left.

They land in the rubble of the once-great city and begin a march to the beam the Reapers have set up to link between Earth and the displaced Citadel. They're so close now. They can see the humans the Reapers are sending up through the beam.

Two hundred yards out, a Reaper lazer cuts through their path, sending tanks and debris in every direction. Shepard and Admiral Anderson are thrown one way, Garrus and James Vega another, landing hard beside an overturned truck.

"Scars, wake up!" Garrus can feel someone slapping him hard across the face, trying to wake him up. He blinks several times before his vision clears and he sees Vega's face hovering above his own.

"Shepard?" he chokes out, coughing as he inhales a lungful of dust.

"She's fine," Vega says, hauling him carefully to his feet. "But you, you're not. She's called for the Normandy to pick us up."

"No!" Garrus tries to pull away and almost passes out from pain shooting through his side. "I'm not leaving her to do this alone."

"You don't have a choice. You stay, you're gonna die."

The Normandy lands and Vega helps him limp up the cargo ramp.

"Wait!" They turn and see Shepard running toward them. "You can't go yet. I need to tell Garrus…"

He separates from Vega, wanting to stand on his own, if only for a few seconds. He knows this really is the end. There's every chance he'll never see her again and he needs her to know how he feels.

"Shepard, I…"

"Garrus, I love you," she says, reaching a hand out to grasp one of his. "I don't mind if you don't feel the same, I just had to tell you."

He's thunderstruck for half a second before he realizes there's no time for it. They're at war, dammit.

"I love you too, Shepard," he replies, his voice weaker from the strain of standing for so long.

She smiles then, one of her rare smiles that actually reaches her eyes. "You come back to me, okay?"

He nods. "I will if you will," he says, his tone lighter than the meaning behind his words.

Her smile turns into a grin. "Of course. There's no Shepard without Vakarian."

"And no Vakarian without Shepard."


End file.
